The invention relates to a device and a process for ionographically recording x-ray images in a thermoplastic coating.
Such a device and a corresponding process are known from German inspection specification No. 2,436,894. According to this specification, a thermoplastic coating is disposed on a heatable substrate in an ionization chamber. The ionization chamber contains a rare gas of high atomic number such as xenon for example. If x-rays from an object being examined pass into this ionization chamber, the rare gas is ionized. The rare gas ions are brought onto the thermoplastic coating by an electric field generated by means of two electrodes in the ionization chamber. This produces a charge pattern corresponding to the spread of intensity in the x-ray beam on the thermoplastic coating.
This charge pattern on the surface of the thermoplastic coating is developed in that the thermoplastic coating is briefly heated and thus softened, then the thermoplastic coating is cooled again. During the brief heating of the thermoplastic coating a superficial relief pattern forms which corresponds to the spread of the charge over the thermoplastic coating. Thus once the thermoplastic coating has cooled down, we have a permanent relief image matching the spread of the charge and thus the spread of intensity in the x-ray beam.